


Changed My Name

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Series: Insightsive [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Loveless
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fighters and Sacrifices Are Known, Angst and Fluff, Crossover, Fighter/Sacrifice, First Meetings, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 10:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11918616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: Will is the Fighter for...well, actually, that's complicated.***"Insight," Hannibal's father muses with a pleased grin, nodding along to a question no one's asked.  His big hand cradles Hannibal's right arm, careful not to touch the dark, new letters scrawled boldly across Hannibal's skin.  "That's a good Name.  A strong Name.  Well done!"





	Changed My Name

**Author's Note:**

> So there's a couple of tropes I always indulge in when I enter a new fandom; doing a Loveless crossover is one of them. (Animal ears and tails as a marker for virginity? Utter, utter crack. Two people bound by a shared name and a _literal, invisible red string_? Sign me up. But wait, I can shred all the scenery ever with colossal spell battles? Ohoho. You had me at carnage. *rubs hands together gleefully*) Funnily enough, I was actually joking when I said Will would insist on being the Fighter, but actually? Will insisted on being the Fighter.
> 
> This would probably have been a lot less angsty the other way around, but...then again, maybe not. o.O

"Insight," Hannibal's father muses with a pleased grin, nodding along to a question no one's asked. His big hand cradles Hannibal's right arm, careful not to touch the dark, new letters scrawled boldly across Hannibal's skin. "That's a good Name. A strong Name. Well done!"

Somewhere, Hannibal knows, his Fighter has just been born, coming into the world with their Name already waiting. He's a little envious of that certainty, that his Fighter will know from the beginning who they are while he had to wait, but protecting a Fighter is a Sacrifice's duty. It makes sense that he came first. By the time they meet, Hannibal will know everything he needs to know about taking care of what's his.

He keeps a closer eye on his sister after that, to her great delight. She comes running to him every night with her arms outstretched, chanting: "Do my Name! Do my Name!" He makes a great show of looking behind her ears, both sets, and peering into the creases of her elbows, tickling her finally into breathless, hiccupping laughter, but he never finds a Name. He's not terribly surprised; she is still very young.

***

"Dad?" Will calls uncertainly, eyes burning dry as he stares at his arm, afraid to blink. Something tugs at his ribs that makes him want to run and run and run--to run _after_ it, like if he can just get to where that pull is coming from, everything will be fine--but the panicked buzzing filling his head makes it hard to think. "Dad!" he yells, voice cracking, as it happens again.

"What?" his dad snaps as he stomps into the front room of their rented trailer, engine grease still smeared from fingertips to forearms. His irritated scowl turns puzzled when he finds Will staring at his skin in horror, black tail bottled out stiff, arm thrust out like he's afraid to touch it. "Will?"

Will looks up at him helplessly, and the frustration his dad usually expresses over the slightest display of meekness vanishes in an instant.

"It keeps changing," Will gets out, voice barely above a whisper.

 _INCISE_ read the neat block letters etched into Will's arm--writ stronger, sharper, more purposeful than before.

Will swallows hard, tongue sticking briefly to the roof of his mouth. "Is...is my Sacrifice okay?"

***

"I'm sorry, Mr. Graham," Dr. Munson says with a heavy sigh, "but without knowing your son's Sacrifice, all I have is guesswork."

Will keeps his head down, topmost ears crumpled down flat as he traces the dark letters on his inner arm over and over with his thumb. If he keeps touching them, he knows they're still there. If he keeps rubbing at them, he can tell himself the way they look is _his_ fault.

The letters say _INSIGHT_ again, but they're blurry. Like they could change again at any moment.

Beside him his dad shifts impatiently, the plastic office chair creaking under his weight. "So let's hear your guesswork, then. Have you seen this before or not?"

The doctor glances at Will like he wants to ask him to leave the room, but Will just firms his jaw stubbornly without looking up. If it has something to do with his Sacrifice, he wants to hear it. He feels bad enough that a nurse had to explain to him the pull he'd felt, that he hadn't tried to get to his Sacrifice--his Sacrifice who'd _needed_ him--before it stopped.

"Well. You understand the science is still in its infancy--Fighting pairs have always been a minority--but...there have been a few recorded cases of this nature. Occasionally, if one half of a pair is gravely injured and the other has the potential to form a new match, the bond may become unstable for a time until the situation resolves. Or," the doctor adds quickly as Will's breath hitches in his throat, "in less dire circumstances, it's not impossible that in times of great...upheaval, a person's psyche might undergo a profound shift, such that even the nature of their Name might change."

That...that doesn't sound so bad, right? He hasn't lost his Sacrifice, isn't going to lose him, and even if he's changing, Will can change with him. The fact that he's still wearing their Name, whatever it is, proves it.

Will's dad breathes out heavily and scrubs an impatient hand across his face. "Great. So my boy might be tied to a headcase. That's just great."

Dr. Munson's expression remains sympathetic, but when Will dares a glance up, he finds the doctor's eyes have hardened. "The fact that their Name has nearly returned to its original state suggests that either your son's Sacrifice is uncommonly resilient or your son's given name is uncommonly apt. We're speaking of acute trauma, Mr. Graham. Not something to be taken lightly."

"Right. Well, let's just hope it's the first one, then, 'cause Will here don't got a 'won't' in him," Will's dad says as he rises to his feet. "Thanks for your time, doc."

"Of course," Dr. Munson says stiffly. "Please drop in again if anything changes."

***

Hannibal rarely looks at his right arm, not after his sharp-eyed aunt fills his closet with long sleeves for every season. Even knowing he's a Sacrifice, no one pays much attention to his Name (and no one comes running to him in the evening to ask him to look for theirs, not anymore and not ever again), not like they would have if he'd been born a Fighter. Though other pairs can still sense him, he's invisible in a way. Safe. Harmless. Without teeth.

He rolls up his sleeves as he regards the livid, mottled face of one of the pigs who'd _dined_ on his sister, fat cheeks plumped by the rope cutting into his neck. Only when he lifts the knife to make the first cut does he pause, startled despite himself by the stark black letters that crawl and twist in the corner of his eye. He doesn't look. (That space should be blank.) He's never going to meet his Fighter anyway. (Not when they keep turning from him, wriggling desperately for escape like a fish on a hook.)

He cuts the smiling, lying cheeks from this pig with a man's face and washes away the blood without ever touching his Name.

***

Will stares down at his trembling fingers, a high, shrill ringing in his ears accompanying the deafening beat of his pulse. There's blood all over his hands, more welling up in his palms, and it spills over as he stands frozen, pooling along with the oil stains on the floor of the garage and streaking down his arms. A thin, scarlet ribbon makes a hasty detour around a black scrawl on his inner wrist: letters that jumble and fade and only reluctantly reform.

 _INSIGHT_ is gone, but the word that's slowly forming in its place makes his stomach flutter and swoop.

_I-N-C-I-S-O--_

"Will!" his father barks, and Will blinks, head jerking up and ears flattening down as he shakes himself like a dog. Though the light in the garage is poor, he squints against it like he's been five days in the dark, the familiar smells of engine grease, brine, and slowly-rusting metal assaulting his senses. "Jesus, boy, stop drifting off like that!"

He looks back down at his hands again, unsurprised to find them clean. His Name, though...he didn't dream that, not entirely. _INCISE_ is back, stronger than before, marching across his skin in a way that looks almost defiant.

He doesn't know what makes him cradle his arm to his chest, covering his defaced Name with his left hand. Just...last time was so bad--he still remembers that, even if it was years ago--and this time there wasn't even a call. Like his Sacrifice didn't think he'd answer, didn't think it'd even matter.

 _I'm here_ , he tries to send down the bond that's supposed to tie them together, two halves of one unbeatable whole. _I'm still here_.

He doesn't know if he's even been heard. No matter how many times he's tried, he's never gotten a response.

***

Hannibal doesn't realize his Name has shifted again, in new ways this time, until a fellow student glances over while they're scrubbing up and bursts out laughing. "Don't tell me that's why you chose to become a surgeon," Janice says with a grin, nodding at his arm.

He doesn't react when he sees _INCISIVE_ staring back at him.

"I suppose it seemed like fate," he says instead with a smile. The very tip of his tail flicks in mild amusement, the ruse second-nature. He'd rid himself of such obvious tells if it weren't expected of him to keep his ears and tail, at least until his Fighter is discovered and the nature of their relationship made clear.

He wonders how long that Name has been there. Since Grentz, the last little piglet on his list? Or since Shipley, the boor on the train, or the man at the bar for whom a simple 'no' hadn't sufficed?

He wonders whatever happened to Insight and tells himself it's for the best. For him, now, to have the keen gaze of someone who could _see_ him directed his way...it wouldn't be good.

He wants it, though. He wants the eyes and the mind that were promised him long ago, even if there's no question how such a meeting would end.

***

"Seems legit," is all Will's partner says the first time he sees Will's Name, Will still grumbling over the busted air conditioning in the squad car as he pushes up his sleeves. "You do have a bite to you, Graham."

Will knows that. Will's cultivated that: it keeps people from looking too hard at why he doesn't look back, gives him a ready-made excuse for his attitude that people just don't question. No one expects the Fighter for Incisive to be all fluffy clouds and rainbows.

They do expect him to fight, and that...that's complicated. He can bring up a battle sphere as fast as the next guy, has a marked talent for near-surgical precision in his spells that cuts collateral damage down to nearly nothing, but he's just not comfortable fighting solo. He keeps his spells short and blunt, never able to really give himself over to the ebb and flow of battle during a collar or a bust. It's supposed to be easy, but sometimes...sometimes it's the suspect, or the battlefield itself--crime scenes warping around them to build labyrinths and cathedrals of bloodstained walls and human remains--that dig down so deep into his brain that he doesn't know what will emerge when he opens his mouth. _Disarm. Bind. Incapacitate._

 _Devou_ \--

Without a Sacrifice to pull him back from the brink of his worst impulses, he can't quite trust himself in a fight, but he refuses to turn to the database to find his match. How many Names would he have to give before he found himself under a microscope somewhere? And how many more times is his Sacrifice's life going to be turned upside down with no Fighter in his corner? It's the same guy, Will's sure of it, as sure as he is of his own--

Well. As sure as he is of anything, really.

"You think it's a guy?" a girlfriend asked him once, glancing uncertainly at his ears. "And you're still waiting?"

He didn't have an answer for her then, and it becomes just another thing he doesn't talk about, definitely not after he joins the police force, despite the supposedly enlightened decade. It's not his potential bisexuality that leaves him in the lurch one too many times before he finds himself given a sympathetic talk and his walking papers.

It’s the fact that the idea of using deadly force in a spell battle, letting his imagination run riot and using it to kill, terrifies the shit out of him, and he balks every time.

Teaching, even profiling, should be a piece of cake by comparison. He tells himself that, anyway.

Some days he almost believes it.

***

When his arm twinges from time to time, Hannibal ignores it. After thirty-four years, the mark has become all but invisible, as expected and easy to dismiss as the freckle on the back of his hand, the faint scar on his neck. He rarely has opportunity to see it regardless; fine suits hide a multitude of secrets.

Baltimore turns out to be full of Fighting pairs, but the buzzing along his nerves as he passes them on the street is more comforting than annoying. It's easy to blend in with so many in residence, and no one asks him where his Fighter is. At his age, within the circles of society in which he moves, the question would be terrible gauche.

Which isn't to say he doesn't notice the Fighter who comes to corner him at his practice. This one is a tall man, with threads of grey creeping in amongst the black of his hair, his heavy frame still solid with muscle, though it's clear age has led him a little ways down the path of indulgence. He rises the instant the door to Hannibal's inner office opens, focusing immediately on the first person through the door.

"Dr. Lecter," he says warmly, thrusting out his hand. "I'm Special Agent--"

"I hate to be discourteous," Hannibal says calmly, breaking in before the patient he's ushering out can have a neurotic episode--or, perhaps worse, attempt to speak for Hannibal. Franklyn Froideveaux is no one's model of good sense or restraint. "But this is a private exit for my patients."

A tiny flicker in dark eyes betrays disappointment as the Fighter looks up from Franklyn's floundering confusion to meet Hannibal's cool stare. Hannibal gives no sign that he notices, though he isn't entirely unsympathetic; Franklyn would have been easy meat. "Oh," the agent says with a quick, embarrassed laugh as he reaches for his badge. "Dr. Lecter. Sorry. I'm Special Agent Jack Crawford. FBI. May I come in?"

Franklyn gapes unpleasantly at his side, but Hannibal takes his time in examining Crawford's badge. It's almost amusing: a Fighter trying to intimidate a Sacrifice. Fighters might have magic at their beck and call, but Hannibal was taught from a very young age how to stand firm, unarmed and vulnerable, and _think_ his way toward victory. A solo Fighter is nothing.

"You may wait in the waiting room," Hannibal replies. _Where you would have done regardless_ , he doesn't feel the need to add, _had you made an appointment_.

He's never appreciated rudeness, rudeness in Fighters least of all. Too much power mixed with too little restraint results in the petty and banal far more often than it results in monsters.

He knows who Jack Crawford is, of course, now that he has a face to put to the name. He wonders if Crawford has come--finally--to investigate him.

The reality is much more ironic.

***

Will tries not to look like he's _slinking_ his way towards Jack's office--keeps his tail from swishing anxiously back and forth, though there's not a damned thing he can do about the tight clamp of his ears to his skull--but it feels that way all the same. He hadn't really let himself believe the Nichols girl was still alive, but she's the one Jack called him in on, so she's the current face of his failure--as his dreams are all too happy to remind him.

It doesn't help that Jack's a Fighter too, leaving them sparking off each other even when Will doesn't intend it. There's even an added sizzle along Will's nerves the closer he gets to Jack's office, a lighter, clearer hum that rings across his senses like a beacon. It feels like a Sacrifice, and Will wonders stupidly for a moment whether Jack's brought his wife in, whether he should be steeling himself for a fight, before he forces himself to walk through the door and everything...just... _stops_.

The man who turns away from the kill map on Jack's wall is a bit older than him--in his early forties, maybe--tall and broad-shouldered, with ridiculous cheekbones, a pair of tawny ears that have to be outright hallucinations, and a stillness to his expression that instantly captures every iota of Will's attention. Most people smile upon meeting a stranger they're certain to be introduced to, but this man stares, eyes watchful. Intent. Inci--

No. It's not possible. And yet--

"Will Graham?" Low, rich voice; accented; utterly confident. Not just a Sacrifice but a well-trained one, not used to defeat. "Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It's good to meet you."

Will walks forward in a daze, reaches out to take the offered hand, and at the first brush of their palms, the bond between them jerks taut like the final piece of a puzzle snapping into place. The doctor--Hannibal?--barely reacts at all beyond a slow widening of his eyes, but the only thing keeping Will on his feet is pure, unfettered shock.

It's...it's his Sacrifice. _His_ Sacrifice, finally, in the flesh. He can feel it: a brilliant flare of belonging and rightness that tunes every fragment of Will's being to his presence like iron filings turning to the swing of a magnet. It startles him a little that the effect is so strong--he's heard about it, of course, but hearing isn't experiencing--and for one panicked instant, he considers dropping his Sacrifice's hand and bolting in the opposite direction. He's not _good_ with people, and even now the prolonged eye contact with _his own Sacrifice_ sends a wave of unease jittering along his nerves.

The one meeting he's been waiting for his entire life, and he's in very real danger of fucking it up royally before Jack clears his throat.

"Do I need to leave you gentlemen alone for a moment?" Jack drawls. The smirk says he's joking; Will realizes only then that he's been standing there holding Hannibal's hand, the two of them staring deeply into each other's eyes for...God, who knows?

Hannibal tugs on a polite smile as he looks over at Jack, about to drop Will's hand, about to say _no_.

"Yes," Will says firmly, wrapping his fingers more tightly around Hannibal's palm. "Uh...yeah, you do. Thanks."

The knowing grin drops off Jack's face, leaving bafflement in its place. "Will?"

"Never mind," Will decides just as quickly, shaking his head. "We'll be right back."

" _What_?"

"I'll explain in a minute, Jack," Will promises as he tugs Hannibal towards the door, his Sacrifice following bemusedly in his wake. "Just...give us a moment, okay?"

"Not. Okay," Jack growls, planting his fists on his desk as he starts to rise. "We don't have time for--"

Will shuts the door on Jack's protest and doesn't give a flying damn if he's just screwed his entire career. Some things are more important.

Will hustles Hannibal into the nearest empty office he finds and locks the door behind them for good measure, just in case Jack decides to hunt them down. That wins him an arched brow, and it occurs to him belatedly that Jack must've thought he'd been poleaxed by sheer lust, not by the shock of meeting his own Sacrifice--that _Hannibal_ might think Will intends for them both to lose their ears, right here, right now.

Will's face goes hot enough to tug a tiny smile from the corners of Hannibal's mouth before he can decide whether that idea has any merit or not.

"Holy shit," Will breathes despite his embarrassment. "I can't believe it's you. I mean...God. You look...good. No, I mean--you're not what I expected. Not that that's a bad thing! I just--I thought--"

"Breathe," Hannibal suggests, warm and patient.

"Sorry," Will mutters, ducking his head. He is so fucking bad at people. Most of the time, he doesn't mind. "It's just...I didn't know what to expect," he admits, suddenly realizing that he's _still_ holding Hannibal's hand. Rubbing his thumb slowly over Hannibal's knuckles, he finds he has zero desire to let go. "They told me the first time that you might've gotten injured, but when it happened again, I figured it had to be something worse.

"But you look...you look good," Will says again, tearing his eyes from their clasped hands to examine the understated quality of Hannibal's casual suit, his confident poise. Whatever's happened to him in the past, it clearly hasn't even come close to breaking him.

Will can't quite drag his gaze higher than the point of Hannibal's jaw, but he can hear the slight frown in Hannibal's voice as he tilts his head a fraction. "The first time...?"

Perplexed, Will jerks his eyes up sharply and doesn't let them skitter away. "The first time our Name changed."

There's something so eerie about the utter stillness that falls over Hannibal, it sends gooseflesh rippling down his arms. Every sense he has is screaming _danger_ , and he doesn't dare blink lest time starts winding backwards behind his lids. It's going to be bad, God, he's always known it's going to be bad, but he doesn't want to find out like _this_.

"Look, um...you don't have to tell me what happened. If you don't want to. I mean, if you do, that's--that's great. I'd be glad to listen. And, uh...I can't say I'm not curious, because--Incisive, sure, that's...not really all that different from Insight, just, ah...more like me in a crowd, but--"

There's...something really strange happening with Hannibal's expression, wary purpose giving way to shock.

"Those were you?"

Will's mouth snaps shut so fast he's in danger of biting his own tongue, nervous babble silenced. He's trying really hard not to look too deeply, but what he sees in Hannibal then can't be unseen.

 _\--a flash, a shift, and the letters that make him one_ half _of something scramble into something new, taking certainty with it. It doesn't last, but what was once familiar is now blurred, impermanent. It's no surprise when it eventually erodes, when the new Name twists as well, as he's metaphysically passed from Fighter to Fighter like a white elephant gift too expensive to throw away but too ugly or awkward to keep. He stops looking entirely until a strange, scruffy man accosts him in an office, drags him away to start prattling with the strangest air of familiarity--his newest Fighter, he supposes, though he **doesn't even know their current Name**_ \--

"Yeah," Will says, fighting the hardest he ever has just to keep his voice steady. "Those were me. It's always been me."

It's always going to be him, because he'll be damned if he lets Hannibal go now.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, I'll just leave this here. For now. Because I desperately need to write what happens during the Garret Jacob Hobbs spell battle, and the absolute clusterfuck that is Tobias Budge, and oh, hey, adding Loveless means that somebody losing their ears is a totally unsubtle metaphor for SEXYTIMES, even when the crossover is with Hannibal, so there's that. *facepalms* Series are my kryptonite.


End file.
